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Friday, June 26, 2015

Neoliberalism and Neofascism in India

The
rise of the Sangh Parivar and with it the BJP in its present form from the
1980s had initially led to a debate among the liberal intelligentsia as to
whether they could be characterised as ‘fascist’. The BJP along with the other
constituents of the Sangh Parivar in little more than a decade, from the
demolition of the Babri Masjid to the Gujarat pogrom, resolved that question.
On a more serious note, the debate within the Left about the nature of fascism
in India led to a wide spectrum of writings. One strand was based on either a
political critique [ii]aimed at exposing the
project of Hindutva in its pristine form as envisioned by Savarkar in 1923 and
later by Golwalkar in 1939 or by tracing the history of the Sangh Parivar from
its precursors to present times. The other strand was based on political
economy interpretations of European fascism of the 1920s and 1930s and
comparisons with the trajectory of the RSS led formation and expansion of the
Sangh Parivar. The two strands of scholarship overlapped and together formed
the basis of the political debate that was vital to the emergence of a progressive
praxis of wide alliance with all anti-communal forces against the BJP – a strategy
that had worked periodically in terms of checking its meteoric rise but broke
down under the contradictions of neoliberalism.

The
connections, similarities and disjunctures of the historical origins of the
present day Sangh Parivar with European fascism is important in understanding
the continuities of the fascist project of ‘Hindutva’ since its inception.
However, the emergence of the BJP since the 1980s as a major national party and
the concomitant growth of the strength of the Sangh Parivar also needs to be
contextualised as part of internationally resurgent neofascism. The rise of
this wave of neofascism internationally through the decades of the 1980s and
1990s further needs to be put in context of wider political economy changes
that have important implications, for example, in the construction of the
‘enemy’ from a fascist point of view. The proliferation of the organized god
market which Meera Nanda[iii] calls
the state-temple-corporate complex has been one manifestation of this with the
most visible impact in education, tourism and urban public culture.The other has been the focus on petty
commodity production which has been argued to be the basis of commonality of
socio-political agenda of Hindutva and neoliberalism in India[iv].
While these are informative, there is an analytical lacuna in the connection
between monopoly capital, neofascism and neoliberalism in these readings.

2. State and Fascism

Like
fascism in the 1930s, Hindutva in its present form is part of a wider
international resurgence of extreme right wing forces since the 1980s. Though
varied in form and intensity, in their development in the last two decades,
they manifest broad similarities in social basis (class support), political
imperative, programme and method. In the last two decades, the coming together
of the Christian fundamentalist right with the Zionist lobby in the USA is a
potent example. The same period saw the strengthening of Likud in Israel, of
Hyder in Austria, the revival of neo-Nazism in Germany and Britain, the rise of
Berlusconi in Italy, the Danish People's Party in Denmark, Le Pen's National
Front in France and the rise of the xenophobic right in Australia. What these
neofascist forces have in common is a total commitment to neoliberalism
articulated as the ‘market’ or ‘free market’ deriving from the domination of
finance capital, just as much as the fascism of the 1930s, professed a
commitment to the ‘state’ as the central institution for the reorganisation of
society and the accumulation process.

As
opposed to classical liberalism, which denied the state in the name of the
individual, fascism reasserted the state as the supreme organisation. It was
argued to stand for a principle which becomes the central motive of ‘man’ as a
member of civilised society. The state in Mussolini’s masculinist reading
dwells in the heart of the ‘man’ of action and of the thinker, of the artist
and of the ‘man’ of science.

In
terms of the role of the fascist state in the economy, Baker (2006) points out
that fascist policies of the 1930s manifested a radical extension of state
control over the economy. Fascist states nationalised key industries, managed
their currencies and made large scale public investments. They also introduced
price controls, wage controls and instituted state-regulated allocation of
resources, especially in the financial and raw materials sector. Before the
second World War in Nazi Germany, big business became increasingly organised
around the Nazi state (finally running the concentration camps – the ultimate
and most horrendous outcome of what is called privatization). The ties between
the larger capitalists and the state in Italy became a mutually beneficial corporatist
exercise[v].

3.Fascist state and Monopoly Capital: Market and Neofascism

Based
on the trajectories of the neofascist parties in Austria, Denmark, France,
Germay, Italy, Norway and Britain, studies reveal that these forces couple a
fierce commitment to neoliberalism glorified as the 'free market' with racist,
supremacist messages that invoke the idea of the untermenschen in different ways. Tracing the connections between
neofascism and neoliberalism, the continuity of the economic project of fascism
in the consolidation of the power of monopoly capital has been emphasized [vi]. In
this regard, big capital’s open consolidation around the BJP in the last few
years is not very different in programme and method in India.

Contrary
to popular belief, the construction of the enemy has not changed in the shift
from fascism to neofascism. The list of enemies have merely been extended with
a shift in emphasis from the Communist, the Jew, the homosexual and the physically
or mentally challenged to primarily Muslims and working class immigrants in
particular and 'Islam' in general. Thus the international dominance of finance
capital and old and new cultural constructs of false indigenity have together
given the BJP and its Parivar affiliates a universal ideology of neoliberalism
and a particluar ideology of Hindutva in its present form, but the particular
ideology has much in common with similar neo-fascist ideologies evolving in
other countries. Very importantly, the spectre in the form of the ‘Muslim’ and
the ‘Bangladeshi infiltrator’ has converged with the paranoid interpretations
of neofascists and the religious right of the imperial world. Added to this, is
the uneven but deliberate move in India to co-opt the Dalit agenda and the
politics of social justice within a framework of ‘reforms’ (the euphemism for
neoliberalism) and Hindutva[vii].

4. Fascist government to class basis of the fascist state

The
social basis of fascism has been strengthened gradually in the neoliberal era.
The question now is whether the ‘take-over of the government’ by the BJP and
its allies will transform over time into a ‘take-over of the state’ by the
Sangh Parivar. In the period of the NDA’s earlier spell at the Centre, we saw
the attempts at re-writing history and saffronisation of education by capturing
institutions of the state, the total readiness to surrender to US imperialism
and the zealous pursuit of asset stripping of the state. All of these have
intensified under the present Modi government. The attempts to stifle dissent
and the attempt to straight-jacket higher education along neoliberal and
neofascist lines are manifest in the appointments being made at the top-level
in higher education institutions, the move to implement CBCS and the clamp-down
on organizations like the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle.

In
states where the BJP has been in government, it has facilitated through
institutions of the state the re-assertion of the traditional ruling class
(which switched its loyalties largely to the BJP after the implosion of the
Congress) constituted by the upper-caste big land-owners along with the
appeasement of the nouveau-rich urban upper class that derives its wealth from
the financial market and real estate. Two examples would be relevant here:
First, using the state for primary accumulation through ‘rentier’ means has
accelerated. This is a familiar feature of accumulation under neoliberalism.
Second, violence against women and especially rape, the traditional instrument
of display of upper-caste misogyny and concomitant social subjugation of joru and jameen has exploded in the power of Khap panchayats and traditional
dominant combines. This combination has always operated on the basis of fascist
methods of breeding cultures of cruelty and fear[viii].

The
institutionalization of this aspect of social domination on the one hand shows
the reduction of the relative autonomy and narrowing of the class basis of the
state, and on the other points to the convergence of the class basis of the
state with that of Hindutva. It is this convergence that connects directly the
relationship between neoliberalism and the rise of fascism in India and
implicates both the Congress and the BJP along with their collaborators and junior
partners.

5.Crisis of Imperialism and the conjoined twins of
neoliberalism and fascism

Classical Fascism emerged at a time which was
marked by three distinct and crucial characteristics.

It was a period of acute world capitalist crisis
with all First World countries characterised by staggering levels of
unemployment. Second, it was a period of intense inter-imperialist rivalry
which was both a cause of the crisis and was in turn strengthened by it; Third,
it was a period when there was a serious socialist challenge. The immediate
post-First World War revolutionary upsurge had been stemmed. But in no
capitalist country of the world, whether major or minor, was the bourgeoisie
secure in power. (Patnaik 1993).

What was the Nazi response? The only economic
restructuring that Nazi Germany did, after it came to power, was to annihilate
the working class movement and to embark on war preparations. The Nazi boom between 1933and 1939was fuelled entirely by
rearmament; the smashing of the trade unions to keep real wages down and inflationary
pressures at bay[ix].

While the post war imperial order was an effort to
emerge out of crisis and restore the circuits of capital nationally and
internationally, the profound systemic crisis of capitalism kept manifesting
since 1973. Very simply put, the ability of capitalism to innovate and expand
by extending its frontiers had reached its limit leading to financialisation
and rentier capitalism; with neoliberalism emerging as the ideology of managing
this process. What is the neoliberal prescription globally? Keep real wages
down, smash the labour movement and infinite war, expropriation of peoples and
a scramble for natural resources.

It is this universal prescription which makes
neoliberalism and neofascism conjoined twins in their common project of
deploying the state towards this programme of narrowing the class basis of the
state in favour of capital.

The extent of
the crisis of the ruling class is determined by its capacity to pass on the
outcomes to the working class and other constituent classes of society. The
nature of what is being passed on and to what extent are specific to ‘balance
of power’ in the specificities of social formations within nation-states and
across nation-states.

6.Capital, Labour and
State in India

Contrary to dominant
assertions, it was not so much the process of planning and Import Substituting
Industrialisation (ISI) per se, but capital’s relationship with labour, that,
defined the contours of the relation between the capitalist class and the state
in the first two decades after independence in India. Since profitability was
not raised through productivity growth, and wage depression was the only
conduit to profitability, the maintenance of profitability through restrictions
on labour acquired great importance.

The dependence
of the Congress on its own trade union wing for legitimacy combined with the
growth of rival political trade unions especially on the Left gave organised
workers a new significance, even though the majority of workers in the economy
remained outside the fold of the trade unions.

The Industrial
Disputes Act 1947 had applied to all cases where one person was employed by
another. Thus in the period between 1946 and 1955, an Act had actually
envisaged the formalisation of all
employer-employee relations in India. Indian capitalists wanted this to be
changed and industry needed to be defined very specifically.

Opposition to
the Industrial Disputes Act reverberated among capitalists as it entitled ‘any
worker’ to raise ‘any industrial dispute’. Fear was expressed that,

…a university, a hospital, a restaurant, a boarding
house, a shop, a circus, a theatre, a zoo, a charitable institution and even an
educational institution have come within its scope. If a liberal interpretation
is given to the definition, it will be within the law to include a church, a
temple and a mosque or other places of worship and a private dwelling house. (All
India Organisation of Industrial Employers 1954:7)

It is clear
from the above that the adjudication machinery had made a serious effort to
cover the entire area of labour exploitation encompassing the informal sector
under the Industrial Disputes Act. However, resistance from capital, led to
multiple amendments that significantly reduced the scope of adjudication based
on a narrowing of the definition of industry to the formal factory sector. This was the institutional basis of sustained
informalisation of the labour force without any adequate legal option for
taking retributive action in all sectors of the economy.

The first two
decade after independence entailed two crucial victories for the capitalist
class – first, the entrenchment of the Hindu family owned business group as the
primary unit of organisation of capital (by legitimizing the Hindu Undivided
Family as a tax and hence property holding entity) and the prevention of
universalisation of labour rights in India. The capitalist class were also wary
of the process of adjudication. The biggest resistance from capitalists came in
addressing labour demands for wage standardisation and social benefits. The net
result was the reinforcement of the capitalist dependence on the state for
disciplining labour.

But from the
late 1960s, cracks had begun to appear in these victories. The state’s ability
to tax the rich shrank progressively through tax evasion and exemptions and
failure to implement a policy based on direct taxation. The structural
inability to maintain high levels of investment, and the inability to
discipline capitalists to achieve high levels of productivity growth led to stop-go
cycles in capital accumulation and these continuities both formed the context
of the shift to neoliberalism and became more acute under neoliberalism.

State policies
have directed a change towards deflationary policies since 1991. The neoliberal
period has seen a reduction of labour’s bargaining power through the
casualisation of the work force including in public sector undertakings. Rising
land hunger, disproportionality crisis in the key sectors of the economy and
‘de-agriculturalisation’ have been the inevitable outcomes of this
corporate-led growth process[x].

The evidence
from the formal factory sector shows that for a product worth Rs 100, labour
value was Rs 2.30 in 2011-12. In 1989-90, it was Rs 6.54. Profit to net value
added increased from 19% to 54% in the same period. Gross capital formation as
a proportion of output declined in the same period. So the neoliberal rhetoric
of India’s labour laws being a reason for high labour cost in India is a
complete figment of the imagination. Given the links between the formal factory
sector and the large informal sector, the restructuring of the labour process
under neoliberalism was the key to this achievement.

How was this
achieved? The strategy was to repress wages, informalise formal sector
employment, and resort to semi-feudal forms of labour on the pivot of
patriarchy.

The state
machinery has been crucial in facilitating this process by the executive not
implementing labour laws and bypassing the legislature and democratic processes
in subversion of labour laws, (the Rajasthan government’s changing of labour
laws is the latest case in point), creating production zones where labour laws
are not applicable, and the increasing class alliance of the judiciary with
capital have been central to this process. Out of a sample of 100 landmark
judgments on labour disputes in the last twenty years, ninety eight went in favour
of employers.

The latest
move in this regard and one of the many promises that the Modi government made
to its corporate backers is to overhaul the entire system of labour laws in
India through the new draft labour code of industrial relations in India.
Legitimising child labour, bans on the right to strike and protest, total
discretion of government to exempt employers, reducing the scope of
applicability of labour regulation even further – the draft code is not only
reminiscent of the fascism of the 1930s, but also goes further in the complete
abrogation of all labour rights in terms of the time and jurisdiction of
raising labour disputes and effective dilution of regulatory processes of
inspection and monitoring.

7.Labour,
Patriarchy, Identity and Accumulation

Three decades
of state-led capitalism preserved patriarchy in every sphere – through a
process of mutating to remain immutable. Four decades of neoliberalism has
brought in its wake newer forms of gender exploitation and new modes of gender
disempowerment[xi] leading to sharpening of both aspirations for
emancipation from gendered dimensions of oppression and marked tendencies of
intensifying patriarchal clout leading to increased intensity of violence
against women. Hindutva is central to this project Market fundamentalism has
bred religious and social fundamentalism as well, with disastrous consequences
for many sections in society and especially women[xii].

The recent
sectoral shifts in the economy have been on clear gender lines. Women were
losing many of their earlier occupations, being crowded into less stable
employment and were being pushed to the margins of the economy. The
heterogeneous gender effects of neoliberal policies of the last few decades
clearly point to a class dimension. The link between caste and class is
established quite firmly in the link between the changes in the structure of
production and the ‘driving out’ of Dalit occupations from the market without
any substitute in terms of employment opportunities. So the status of Dalits in
rural India is overwhelmingly that of landless, migrant workers[xiii].

All women are
usually workers, whether or not they are defined or recognized as such. In all
societies, there remain essential but usually unpaid activities which are
largely seen as the responsibility of women. This pattern of unpaid work tends
to exist even when women are engaged in outside work for an income, whether as
wage workers or self-employed workers. Women from poor families who are engaged
in outside work usually cannot afford to hire others to perform these tasks, so
most often these are passed on to young girls and elderly women within the
household, or become a “double burden” of work for such women. (Ghosh 2012)

These
processes are integral to capitalism: the production of both use values and
exchange values by women is essential for the accumulation process, and, if
anything, this reliance has become more marked under neoliberalism because this
is the easiest way to cheapen the value of labour.

In recognized
work, women’s wage rates show very low or negative growth in Karnataka,
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Apart from ploughing and slowing, gender gaps in
wages are persistent at their levels in all other agricultural occupations at
the national level. Between 2008-09 and 2011-12, while real wages for non
agricultural occupations like masonry (4%) and blacksmithing (4%) , have seen a
modest increase in rural areas, most other occupations have registered either
stagnating (carpentry and cobbling) or falling real wages (sweeping and unskilled
labour). Thus intensification of wage
depression is the second significant feature of the current regime[xiv].

Lastly recent work
on discrimination in the labour market provides evidence on levels and quantum of
entry barriers and wage discrimination on the basis of caste, religion and
gender demonstrating that the levels of discrimination are much higher in the
private sector compared to the public sector[xv].

There is
re-emergence of non-capitalist forms of labour in the fastest growing sites of
accumulation – eg brick kilns, garment industry, construction sites with increasing use of family labour and bonded labour. According to Mazumdar, Neetha and Agnihotri
(2013:62),

“…A case in point is the present labour law
regime’s conceptual effacement of women workers’ individual entitlements where
jodi based migratory labouring units are combined with piece rate wages – as in brick kilns across the
country and sugar cane harvesting in western and southern India. The
significance of this issue, though noted in description, has been largely
ignored in the literature... The findings show that a larger proportion of
women of SC and ST backgrounds are concentrated in rural based circular
migration marked by contractor driven debt/advance based tying of male female
jodi labour. This in turn has interlocked semi-feudal bondage and semi-feudal
patriarchal practices into recruitment and employment practices of a section of
the developing modern industries, highlighting the primitive basis of their
mode of accumulation…”.

Combining
these with ways of controlling labour on the basis of gender, religion and
caste identity, appeals to feudal patriarchy in the name of tradition and the
bogey of denying security of citizenship rights to Muslims and Dalits (with both
direct coercion, expropriation and violent pogroms; and using indirect modes of
labour control), the system works to perfection in its ability to deliver
labour virtually free to India’s capitalists – big and small.

It
follows then that resistance to fascism cannot be confined to outrage over violence,
pogroms and use of ultimate fascist methods, but has to be built into the
democratic struggles against caste, patriarchy, neoliberalism, semi-feudalism
and capitalism. So it is a question of how far and in what ways are we willing
to take on these every day assaults by the conjoined twins of neofascism and
neoliberalism?

Notes:

[i] An earlier version of
this note was presented at a seminar in Kolkata in July 2014. A shorter and
earlier version of this note has been published in Punarnaba.

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